This project was developed as a continuation of the project ESSI. It attempts to provide some perspective as to the socialistic status of countries in a sincere and honest manner.

IMPROVEMENT

The ESSI index provides a scale, but in terms of sustainability this scale is common-sense based only as it does not have any specific benchmark. This is troubling.

We like benchmarks because they allow us to compare the past and so to catch a glimpse of what may happen in the future.

It so happen that we do indeed have a meaningful benchmark: the USSR.

We can calculate the ESSI index of the USSR just before it dissolved. This point in time is critical, because it indicates (in an empirical way) how indebted a communist country can be just before it stops functioning altogether. Granted, this number does not come with a written guarantee, but it is quite a good benchmark.

As such, the ESSII has no units (it's a ratio). The ESSII is hence a straightforward calculation which indicates where countries are in relation to where the USSR was just before it imploded. This provides us with a brand new optic through which we can review existing countries; and the numbers are revealing.

OUR INDEX

Color coding

The table is coded as follows:

The Table

This is the table of countries sorted by ESSII calculated for 2013. The first column contains the name of the country and the second column contains the ESSII. All data was obtained from the International Monetary Fund. Take a look at yours.

As with ESSI, the US is the first most socialistically un-sustainable country in the world. There are no surprises here. What is surprising is the magnitude of its non-sustainability: 42 times! This means that today the US has surpassed 42 times the point at which the USSR imploded. That's right, 42 times, not 42%; there is no calculation error here.

Compare this number with China, the largest communist country in the world: 1.6 times. This means that Chinese communism is borderline sustainable and honest.

And who is the least socialistic (and honest) country in the world? Who is the beacon of the free market with an ESS II score of only 0.8? Iran!

This means that the "leader" of the "free markets" (US) is the most socialistic un-sustainable country in the world, and that one of the countries belonging to the "Axis of evil" is the most pro-capitalist country in the world!

Not everything is what it looks like.

The other table

For your convenience, we have also included a table with the data sorted by country name.

The scale

There is one more thing that we did. Using the ESSII data, we created a histogram which shows just how far from the norm certain countries are; this provides a whole new perspective to the many political lies and games that politicians play. Please see below.

Final Notes

Also, if you want the entire table, including all the years for which the IMF had data, please download the attached Excel or PDF files.